What if Apple was also planning on releasing some sort of Graphics subsystems along with these machines or perhaps a new card from nVidia or ATI. I mean we never did see any fruit from the Racer Graphics acquisition. I bet one of the *other things* has to do with EVEN MORE graphics performance. Perhaps the other is either a 64-bit OS X OR perhaps integrated, AppleSeed-type clustering. Dean Dauger *has* been pretty quiet via e-mail lately. Hmmmmm.... I wonder.

[quote]Originally posted by Ed M.:
<strong>What if Apple was also planning on releasing some sort of Graphics subsystems along with these machines or perhaps a new card from nVidia or ATI. I mean we never did see any fruit from the Racer Graphics acquisition. I bet one of the *other things* has to do with EVEN MORE graphics performance. Perhaps the other is either a 64-bit OS X OR perhaps integrated, AppleSeed-type clustering. Dean Dauger *has* been pretty quiet via e-mail lately. Hmmmmm.... I wonder.

[quote]Originally posted by kim kap sol:
<strong>Imagine the look on the face of the poor unsuspecting not-in-tune-with-rumors soul that purchases a Dual 1.45 GHz G4s and discovers a couple weeks later that a 2.5 GHz 970 is now selling for the same price and offers 3+ times the performance.

I think the look would probably be equivalent to the those of the people that bought a 23" cinema display right before the huge price cuts.

#3) I don't think we'll see it in a PowerMac until MWSF (if there is one)

#4) I don't think these processors are being produced yet, other than prototypes, and I think we'll see a few more proto refinements before they are rolling off the conveyor belts (so to speak)

#5) forget #5

Buying a Dual 1.42 GHz PowerMac right now is not a bad move. The PowerMac is the most recently updated piece of Apple hardware, and I still say we wont see the 970 til super late 2003, or 2004. IT MAY BE A MERRY X_MAS AFTER ALL

[quote]Since a 1.8ghz PPC 970 is faster than what a 3.6ghz PPC G4 would be (if such a thing existed), a 2.5ghz PPC 970 is coming in with performance at well over what you'd see from a 5ghz G4, based on SPECint and SPECfpu benchmarks.
Actually, the floating point performance is even better than 2x a G4 at the same clockspeed... hold onto your hats...
<hr></blockquote>

Der-rool, der-rool.

Hmmm. Just thought...2fpu. Moki nudge my brain forward... ERm. Hmmmm. Double the fpu of the G4 at 1 gig. Quad at 1.8. 970 At 2.5? Almost 5-6 times the fpu performance of the G4? And THAT excludes bandwidth...and improved Altivec performance. AND PUT THAT IN DUALS? A 2.5 dual 970 will murder current G4s in Lightwave benches. It's going to be a blood bath!!!

[quote]Originally posted by Masker:
<strong>I'm waiting for the first post that states...

"Okay I'm thinking of purchasing a 2.5 GHz 970 Powermac this fall for school , but I'm wondering if I should just wait for the Dua; 3 Ghz that we have all heard rumored... Any advice?"

I guess my big fear is that Apple (in logic-defying typicalness) does not adopt the 970.

MSKR</strong><hr></blockquote>

That would be inline with their "logic." How convinced were people of a G5? of a Tablet? an iPhone (the whole patent thing)? The "year of the portable" slogan seems to support this sadness, but Apple's economic survival in the business market does not.

"Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess."

I think the implications of this are huge. One of them is the likelyhood of OSX on Intel...Oh yes my friends. The move to Intel was espoused as a solution to performance problems...how wrong we were. The port to Intel will be an aggressive move aimed right at Microsnot's arse, Think about it, if you are totally confident that you have the best specced, best designed, FASTEST machines around then there is nothing to fear. Get the great unwashed playing with OSX on their digusting beige boxes and then sell 'em a REAL computer...Oh the irony!

I think the implications of this are huge. One of them is the likelyhood of OSX on Intel...Oh yes my friends. The move to Intel was espoused as a solution to performance problems...how wrong we were. The port to Intel will be an aggressive move aimed right at Microsnot's arse, Think about it, if you are totally confident that you have the best specced, best designed, FASTEST machines around then there is nothing to fear. Get the great unwashed playing with OSX on their digusting beige boxes and then sell 'em a REAL computer...Oh the irony!

vinney57
[quote]
I think the implications of this are huge. One of them is the likelyhood of OSX on Intel...Oh yes my friends. The move to Intel was espoused as a solution to performance problems...how wrong we were. The port to Intel will be an aggressive move aimed right at Microsnot's arse, Think about it, if you are totally confident that you have the best specced, best designed, FASTEST machines around then there is nothing to fear. Get the great unwashed playing with OSX on their digusting beige boxes and then sell 'em a REAL computer...Oh the irony!
<hr></blockquote>

Too bad MS just bought Virtual PC. I wonder if Apple even knew about that (i.e., had a chance to buy it instead). I hope Apple has an even better solution than VPC to offer those with one foot in both camps.

[quote]Originally posted by moki:
<strong>Well, I meant two separate fairly surprising items... at least based on current conventional wisdom re: the PPC970's and Apple's new machines.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Multi-GPU configs, where substantial OS-ness is offloaded. FW3200. XGrid. IBM adds 'Mac OS X Server' to list of supported/provided OSes for a wide array of their lineup (which currently includes AIX and Linux, basically).

As far as I can see, Apple's dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's to be useful in the 'workstation' market. I'd rather run FrameMaker under Mac OS X than AIX.

#3) I don't think we'll see it in a PowerMac until MWSF (if there is one)

#4) I don't think these processors are being produced yet, other than prototypes, and I think we'll see a few more proto refinements before they are rolling off the conveyor belts (so to speak)

#5) forget #5

Buying a Dual 1.42 GHz PowerMac right now is not a bad move. The PowerMac is the most recently updated piece of Apple hardware, and I still say we wont see the 970 til super late 2003, or 2004. IT MAY BE A MERRY X_MAS AFTER ALL </strong><hr></blockquote>

Yeah...but there's going to be buyers that'll get screwed...it's inevitable. If (and I say if) Apple chooses the 970 and ships it later this year, the jump in performance will be huge. And there's going to be a lot of people that will have bought a Dual 1.42 GHz a few weeks before the 970. I'm saying this matter of factly. I don't really care if they screwed or not...it's up to them to follow rumors and make decisions based on the rumors...but the fact is, people will buy a 1.42 GHz G4 right before the 970 and will have gotten the worst deal of their lives.

Yeah...but there's going to be buyers that'll get screwed...it's inevitable. If (and I say if) Apple chooses the 970 and ships it later this year, the jump in performance will be huge. And there's going to be a lot of people that will have bought a Dual 1.42 GHz a few weeks before the 970. I'm saying this matter of factly. I don't really care if they screwed or not...it's up to them to follow rumors and make decisions based on the rumors...but the fact is, people will buy a 1.42 GHz G4 right before the 970 and will have gotten the worst deal of their lives.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Ugh... I don't even know WHERE to begin... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />

Gee I just found a cure for old age (okay the G4 isn't that bad... but its getting really close) oh BUT maybe I should keep it to myself cause after all the families of those who have already died might feel bad.

A friend who reads a lot about the tech industry told me that the 970 would immediately be able to begin scaling from 2.5 GHz (which they have RIGHT NOW) to 5.0 GHz, and that it would reach that mark at the same time Intel hits 5 GHz at least. Is this true? That would be awesome, we'd finally have the best of both worlds - the awesome industrial design and wonderful OS of today's Macintosh, combined with the competitive power of years gone by. Looks like we're shaping up for a good next couple of years!

EDIT: People always get screwed. What's Apple going to do, quit selling the PowerMac G4 six weeks before the PowerMac 970 comes out just so no one gets overly pissed? Early adopters of the current generation of G4s will be just as screwed as those who bought a IIvx just weeks before the Quadra 650... the performance difference will probably be very similar. The Q650 was something like 3x faster than the IIvx, and the IIvx was a real piece of crap.

[quote]Originally posted by kin555:
<strong>19 years ago Apple wanted IBM dead. Now they need them to survive. Thanks Big Brother!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmmm, given Job's sense of irony, what venue would be good for the release of a remake/tribute of the "1984" commercial? Maybe that's the reason we haven't heard anything from Apple about using this chip. They're waiting for the remake to be finished?

[quote]Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
<strong>A friend who reads a lot about the tech industry told me that the 970 would immediately be able to begin scaling from 2.5 GHz (which they have RIGHT NOW) to 5.0 GHz, and that it would reach that mark at the same time Intel hits 5 GHz at least. Is this true?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not necessarily. The P4 was designed to run at high clock speeds. In fact Intel made some engineering tradeoffs that resulted in its performance actually being worse than the PIII's at the same clock speed. But they made up for this by pushing the clock speed much faster than they could get the PIII up to.

So the P4 has plenty of headroom. And its performance bottlenecks are well mapped. That means that fairly minor tweaks (that are already known) to the process used to fabricate them will improve clock speeds.

With the PPC970, IBM probably has some headroom, (and bumping 1.8 Ghz from the "high-end" clock speed to the "entry level" speed is a good sign) but how much and how easy it will be to tweak the design probably isn't well understood at this point. So yes, they will probably be able to improve on things without major revisions to the design as time goes on, but how much and how fast is anybody's guess.

Regarding the G4/1.42 getting screwed.
The 601 CPU was the top of the line from Mar 94 to Aug 95 when the 604 came. Then the G3 came in Nov 97 to be replaced by the G4 two years later. They all have been relegated from the top of the line CPUs in two years or less apart from the G4 that have been in the front line for more than 3 years. So who should be surpriced?

I am eagerly awaiting a dual 1.25 at work, and I will not be upset if the midrange is replaced by a dual 2 GHz 970 later this year. For it intended use the 1.25 will last me several years.

If Apple was to lessen the blow to the G4 owners they could use 970 in the 1.4 to 1.8 GHz and avoid those that are to fast <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" /> and perhaps go to all single configuration to not risk beating the Pentium IV.

My hope that after four failing years with the G4 that Apple will be eager to get all ther performence they can get and are willing and eager to beat up the competition IRL not in some few selected PS filters.

I have tried to calculate how many time higher SPEC scores a dual 970 gets than my current G4/400 at home but I am running out out of fingers <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> Is a manyfold a bigger entity than a several fold?